Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday September 27, 2012 @02:23PM
from the play-it-if-you-got-it dept.

CowboyNeal writes: "Last week was a big week for gamers, with the release of both
Borderlands 2 as well as Torchlight 2. I already shared my thoughts
on the former last week, so I got to playing the latter over the weekend.
Torchlight 2 is the follow-up to Torchlight, the 2009
point-and-click ARPG created by Runic Games. What's new that the first game
didn't have? And, the big question, how does it stack up against Diablo
3? Click the link below to learn my impressions of the game."

A Testimonial, and a Confession

First, I have to admit some bias here. When Diablo 2 came out over
a decade ago, it was my favorite game for quite some time. Its expansion pack
only cemented its position as the best game of all time, for me. It's key to
note here, that Diablo 2 was only the best game ever in my opinion,
and eventually it aged and got to the point where it was nigh unplayable on
modern computers. I even tried going back several times in the past few years,
and just found it too archaic to function properly on modern hardware. It
desperately needed either some patches or a successor to bring it up to date.

When Blizzard Entertainment announced Diablo 3, I couldn't have
been happier. At last, an updated version of the best game ever would be
available. However, something felt odd about Diablo 3 even before I
ever played it. Blizzard kept reviews at bay until after release via a
restrictive NDA. That's fairly common, and not enough to raise suspicion alone,
but still odd that there weren't more early peeks allotted to the usual media
channels. Even after its release, the demo was only available by invite. I
couldn't even download the demo for Diablo 3 unless someone who had
already bought the game gave me a code. Now something smelled fishy. So I held
onto my sixty dollars, which while would be a small price to pay for the best
game ever, it seemed like Diablo 3 wouldn't be that game. Eventually I
was able to wrangle a demo code from someone who had bought the game and wanted
to lure me into playing it. I didn't get very far into the demo before I got a
quest just to use a waypoint. Perhaps they didn't realize that I have killed
Diablo and his brothers dozens if not hundreds of times already. I know how to
work a waypoint. I need monsters to kill. Out of respect for the franchise, I
kept on. I even finished the demo, but by the time I did so, it was clear to
me, that Diablo 3 was going to be a giant let-down for me. Whatever
fun I had with Diablo 2 was done and gone, and would stay in the past.

I had had the good fortune of playing Torchlight, and like just
about everyone else, my biggest complaint was that the game had no multiplayer.
Other than the lack of multiplayer, I thought it was just about perfect. Given
my previous love for Diablo 2, this shouldn't be any sort of surprise.
So now at long last, Runic has released the multiplayer-enabled Torchlight
2. Similar to the old "Open Battle.Net" games of Diablo 2, you
can play the same character in single player, LAN, and internet games. This
proved to be key, as on release day, Runic's servers melted from the onslaught
of players. Internet games were finally enabled a couple days later, but in the
meantime, plenty of single player and LAN games were had. Through the creative
usage of some VPNs, I was even able to play LAN games over the internet.

Once More Into the Fray

The game starts off in the ruins of the town of Torchlight. Wait a second,
didn't I save the town from Ordrak at the bottom of the mines and whatever else
was down there? Well, it turns out that I did, so long as I wasn't playing an
alchemist. The alchemist, on the other hand, was corrupted by the heart of
Ordrak and immediately knew that he had to burn down the town, and leave a path
of death and destruction across the land as he began his new plot to destroy
the world. Okay, so the plot isn't Hugo Award caliber stuff here, but neither
was "Diablo lived somehow, and you have to go kill him again," nor was "Hey,
why don't you just run on into this dungeon and fetch me the Amulet of Yendor."
Really the plot is just a means to goad me into venturing into areas that I
haven't already taken it upon myself to go explore and kill everything in.

That brings us down to what the real fun in any point-and-click ARPG is.
Taking on and killing hordes of enemies at once, securing an area, and then
reaping the immediate rewards in the form of experience and loot. The
Torchlight series has traded in the grimdark setting of
Diablo for an art style that's a bit more cartoon-like, but the core
gameplay survives. This is a feature that Torchlight 2 recreates
flawlessly. Combat is fast, frenetic, and visceral. Enemies have a chance to
explode into a pile of gibs, leaving bloodstains on the ground. Frozen enemies
can be shattered into chunks of ice. Often the action happens so fast, that
creatures can be slain before I'm even aware they exist. It's exactly the
opposite of the first act of Diablo 3, which comparatively felt like
drudgery.

Building the Perfect Warrior

There's four classes to choose from in Torchlight 2, and while they
follow some archetypes, they're also rather configurable in how they're played
via skills and weapon choices. The embermage is a classic spellcaster who uses
staves and wands, and can learn many different spells to put down his enemies.
The outlander is a ranged class that excels at nearly every sort of ranged
weapon. The berserker is a melee damage class that can gain bonuses from using
two weapons of the same type. And last but not least, is the engineer, a
versatile class that can use shields, two-handed weapons, and even cannons, or
some combination of those, depending on skill set. It's important to note here,
that every class can wield every weapon, there's just not always a bonus for
doing so. You're free to make a berserker who uses shotguns, for example,
there's just not many skills for the class to support it.

Skills aren't tied to any sort of tree structure like they were before. You
only need to be of a skill's required level to unlock it. Active skills such as
spells, will also confer a bonus after investing five, ten, or fifteen points
into them. Leveling up a character also isn't the only way to gain skill
points. As you gain in fame from killing bosses and random named mobs, you
acquire a skill point for every level of fame you've achieved as well.

Keep Going Back For More

It took me a little over 20 hours to save the world, on my first trip
through on normal difficulty. Normal difficulty was still rather easy, and I
think my next trip through the world will be at the veteran level. There are
however, still a number of activities for my first character to do. Completing
the game unlocks the Mapworks, a robot-run area where you can load custom maps
to complete. It's also possible to create a new world that begins at your
current level, so I could start a new game with that character where the first
monsters would be around level 50. Because the dungeons and open areas outside
towns are randomly generated, a second playthrough manages to still feel
somewhat fresh. Combine that with a character class that you haven't played
before, or a new set of skills for one that you have, and there's lots of
reasons to keep replaying.

But is this the new best game ever?

In short, yes. I've spent time reading people's meager, whiny complaints
about this gift of the gods that has been put on sale for a mere twenty
dollars. Sure, you can only reallocate the last three skill points you've
spent, and you can't redo all your stats and skills once you're leveled up.
That's so that you learn from your mistakes and go back and play the game
again. There's no one to hold your hand to find the area where the quest is at.
There's a marker on your map for you to aim for, and that's more than any
player deserves. The quests are still rather simplistic, and of the form to go
kill someone or a group of someones, or to collect a thing, or a group of
things. Again, the quests are merely a vehicle to get you into new areas. If
you happen to kill the guy that advances the plot, that's a bonus. If you stop
to talk to an NPC, the world does not stop for you. Enemies will continue to
attack you as you choose your quest reward, because you were too stupid to
clear out the area of any possible threats before sitting down to talk. I think
I've now sufficiently debunked any negative points I've read in other reviews.
If you don't like point-and-click ARPG games, you're not going to like this
one. No one is going to change the entire genre to enable someone's crazy
ideas. Well, unless it's Diablo 3, and look how that turned out. Sure
it sold well, but I would now have to waterboard my friends into admitting that
they fell for purchasing it.

My biggest complaint about this most perfect game, is that there's no Mac or
Linux versions, yet. I say yet, because three years after the first game was
released, we even have a Linux version now. You can pick it up, DRM-free, right
now for a limited time, for the price of whatever-you-want, as part of the Humble Indie Bundle 6. You can donate
some or all of the price to the EFF as well. Shameless plugs aside, it may take
a few years but eventually Torchlight 2 should make the rounds as
well. Runic Games has a lot in store for the game yet, such as console
versions, as well as Steam Workshop integration, which will enable easy mod
installation. Mod support will presumably let players redo their skills and
stats, and cheat if they want to.

I pre-ordered Torchlight 2 when Diablo 3 came out and I concluded I wouldn't buy it because of the always-online requirement. However, I never got any notices that Torchlight 2 had become available, so until just a few minutes ago I didn't realize it was out. Apparently Steam doesn't bother sending notices when pre-orders are released, unless a spam filter ate it or something.

I'm looking forward to giving the game a shot, though after about 1.5 playthroughs of the original Torchlight I started to find th

I think it's more like complaining that the alarm clock in the room didn't go off after you unplugged the phone, and them explaining how even though one might think an alarm clock doesn't need a phone connection, automatically updating the time on the clock does require the phone connection, and while sure one could theoretically have designed the alarm to function normally in the absence of a phone connection only minus the features the connection enables rather than disable it completely, but they didn't

If you or anybody else wants to buy Torchlight because of their issues with D3, send a message to Activision/Blizzard by emailing or sending them your receipt for your purchase of Torchlight (or whatever else you spent your money on).

Not buying their product is one thing (they might just attribute it as a loss to piracy). Showing them that you had the money *and* inclination to buy something but instead bought a competitors product is a whole other thing.

If you or anybody else wants to buy Torchlight because of their issues with D3, send a message to Activision/Blizzard by emailing or sending them your receipt for your purchase of Torchlight (or whatever else you spent your money on).

Not buying their product is one thing (they might just attribute it as a loss to piracy). Showing them that you had the money *and* inclination to buy something but instead bought a competitors product is a whole other thing.

Too bad you posted that anonymously... I will do this when I get home tonight because it will also indicate that not only did I have the money for their game, I got *four* copies of their competitor's game for the same price as their own. Bonus points for "their competitor" being developers that were originally a part of Blizzard [wikipedia.org].

I've just downloaded the pirate version to check it out. Fell in love with it after 5 mins (and i'm not such a fan of ARPG games), but I'll be definitely buying a 4 pack of licences very soon to cover me and the kids, they deserve my money. Great work Runic!

Dude I gotta say...TORCHLIGHT 2 ROCKS!!! I pre-ordered for me and my boys, they had a cool deal where you could pay $60 (the same as a single copy of D3) and get 4 copies of Torchlight 1 AND get 4 of Torchlight II on release, what a steal! BTW you can still get 4 copies for $60 [steampowered.com] but I don't think you get TL 1 for free like if you pre-ordered.

Torchlight 1 is still a blast but to me its not the MP that was missing, it was the challenge. You could save up gems and build a "weapon of ultimate ass kickery" and just slaughter the entire game. Now not only did they fix this but LOOOT BABY LOOOT! The loot is cool but you gotta seriously hunt and fight and you WILL die even on normal level, these bad guys don't play around! There is this Manticore boss out in the desert and when we hit that place it was like walking into hell, just fire and explosions and lightning, and when you are playing MP with friends or family here is some KILLER things about MP..1.-Everyone gets their own loot, no loot snatching, 2.-Trading is simple and easy, if you get something your buddy can use or he gets a cool weapon you need for the set you're building? Swap in seconds. 3.-Bad guys ramp up a LOT when you add players, no going in with your buds and just laying waste, you better bring your A game because they sure do!

I know everyone is gonna compare to Diablo 3, but I don't think that is fair or right. They built D3 to be an online only MMO style real money market thing, while Torchlight 2 takes all we loved about D1 and D2 and dungeon crawlers and just ramps it to 11, making everything better! It really makes it a community, even going so far as to say "Modders are welcome here, come on in!" so we'll be seeing cool stuff added to Torchlight for years, which is something I LOVE LOVE LOVE to see games do, it adds so much to an already great game!

So if you like RPGs? If you like dungeon crawlers? If you liked Diablo 1 and 2? if you don't like always on DRM and real money markets? then BUY TORCHLIGHT 2 NOW! The first time we played the boys kept popping up in game "You only paid $20 a copy for this? Seriously? this rocks!" and I have to agree, its the most fun I've had in an RPG dungeon crawler in years, great loot, great sets, great drops, hard bad guys and bosses,lots of secrets and easter eggs (be sure to look for a basket near where you find the lotion for a cute "Silence of the Lambs" riff) its just a fricking blast!

I loved D2, and still play it occasionally with my sons (who, incidently was 1 when it was released and the other wasn't even born - I feel so old), so I really was looking forward until D3 until I found out about the always online thing, and that was the deal breaker for me. Trading house, DRM, whatever the reason, always online is just not practical nor even possible, I spend a lot of time on trains (3 hrs + per day) travelling through regional areas with spotty coverage at best. I picked up TL 1 and enjo

One note... I got a friend together to play online and as I was arranging stuff, I accidently clicked this little green magnifying glass icon just to the bottom right of the health globe... it turns off your "loot bubbles" and no manner of going into options to figure out why there were turned off will help. All the "show items" are checked. It was frustrating until my Google fu turned up a link (which wasn't the easiest to find yet as it's not popular enough of a request).

While being passive-aggressive and using lmgtfy.com is fine when you're having a personal conversation with one other person, but it's kind of rude to use it when other people who did nothing wrong might want to click your link. I was curious if the key binding change was done at the console or if it required editing configuration files somewhere. Sadly, all I learned is that people on the internet can be needlessly condescending.

I have a better question...why? You ALREADY have 10, count 'em, 10 slots you can use for pretty much ANYTHING, potions, fish to feed your pet, whatever, and those are controlled by..get this...the 1-0 keys on the top of the keyboard. How easy is that? Attack is left click, magic right, and you can swap magic in seconds by right clicking on the magic icon, easy peasy.

So while its fine and dandy you can remap keys, and I'm sure since TL2 allows modding you'll see some nice little community tools like allowing several bindings to switch from, i just don't want anyone to think the default keys are shit. I have played a LOT of games where the default keys are shit and this? Not one of them. Try something like Turning Point: Fall of Liberty for a hair pulling wanna pull an Elvis on the monitor bad control scheme. this? this is a simple layout which for the fun but simple gameplay of "there is bad guy, go and thumpeth him" it works VERY well.

For something that is a whole $20, allows modding, lets you play for free with your friends, lets you find the good loot instead of buying it from a market, and has countless hours of goodness? People sure do find some little nits to pick.

Think he meant Activision/Blizzard. And the fact that Diablo 3 requires you to always be connected to Blizzard's servers even while playing single player, while maybe not pure evil, is the reason I will never buy Diablo 3.

i don't have a problem with DRM requires internet (well actually i do, but ideological purity takes a back seat to "i know how to get a crack for this shit") I refuse to play a single player game that is only partially on your PC and is dependent upon a remote server to function, for not legitimate reason

I refuse to buy Diablo 3 because of the elephant in the room that nobody seems to mention, being constantly connected to their servers for SP means you are gonna deal with la-la-la-lag. I've watched friends with 20MBit cable connections play and they would still get spots where it was obviously jerking and it wasn't their systems, its the thousands of miles between them and Blizzard's servers. Jim Sterling at The Escapist [escapistmagazine.com] made a nice rant about how we should ALL be pissed at them for the DRM, and a big part was the jerking laggy mess he'd find or not being able to get on after buying on release day.

Compare this to Torchlight 2. it took me and my boys less than 5 minutes to tie our Steam to Torchlight IIs matchmaking service (which is required because they also sell standalone Windows and soon Linux copies as they do TL I) and 3 minutes after that I was hosting a private server on my own system and the boys were in game and joining me in the fun. ZERO lag,no matter how many "super fireballs" the youngest liked to throw or insane supermoves the oldest pulled off, instant trading between us, it all "just worked" and when I had to sit in the doctor's office to get me some antibiotics for my bi-annual sinus infection i was playing my SP character (we agreed to save separate characters for MP and SP so that we'd be on the same level) on my little E350 netbook with no online and just having a ball.

Funny as I'm sure this is one of those ePeen douchebags that thinks anything that isn't a 21 inch core i7 monster with a 2Gb Nvidia card should not be allowed to exist. Of course they have to walk around looking for plug ins constantly, whereas I can play a game like TLII for 3 hours or more no problem, i also don't roast my nuts from the insane heat and can actually sit in a seat without having this huge ass desktop with screen attached dragging me down.

Can I play the game if the company that is putting up street lights and drills thru my internet connection and takes me off the web for a week when I am at home? If not, then yes, they are evil.

And yes, three blocks over a company did exactly that. I was off the web unless I went to a cafe or was at work. If a company cannot be bothered to let a person play a single player game without being connected to the web, then they do not deserve my money.

I think my biggest complaint is the same as Borderlands 2.. no crafting to break up the slay-collect-sell rinse-repeat. I guess if you like slay-collect-sell that much, this game is perfect for you. If you want to set your own goals for finding rare components and crafting powerful gear, you're SOL, but that's not everyone's cup of tea.

On the other hand, TorchED is promised, and moddable games are good, which is what sold me. Hopefully someone can add to the gameplay!

You can at least merge set items and various types of equipment into new random pieces in Torchlight 2.Not nearly as much of a crafting system as I would like to see, but better than the usual "this item is not for my class, vendor trash..."

Just because the game has an easy exploit in its stat system doesn't mean that you have to actually exploit it, you know. No-one is forcing you to craft those Potions of Fortify Smithing/Echanting 1000000%, and doing so requires deliberate work, so just don't do it?

Granted, regular crafting in Skyrim is still somewhat overpowered. But then you still have to waste skill points to unlock enough of the tree to let you craft the really powerful stuff (glass/ebony/daedric/dragon) - which, if you dungeon crawl, you might as well invest into some combat or magic skills instead.

Besides, Elder Scrolls games were always hilariously unbalanced, crafting or not. For example, if you knew where to go and had just the right character build, you could get a full set of daedric armor before hitting level 3 in Morrowind - though it required quite a bit more of an effort compared to stacking potions in Skyrim. Still, the choice always was and remains to simply not do it.

The WoW-esque graphics are such an extreme turn-off, and the fact that anyone from Blizzard had so major an influence on the game is just as much a boner-kill. Torchlight 2 had promise, but didn't deliver any more than Diablo 3 did. Mashing a single button and watching random numbers float by isn't fun, and is definitely not all that an ARPG can accomplish, but Torchlight 2 has literally nothing else. There's no choices or compl

You sound like you're the kind of person who doesn't enjoy the original Diablo games or lookalikes. If that's the case, why did you even bother with Torchlight? Its whole reason for existence is to cater to that segment of players.

I had hoped that the Linux release of the original meant that the sequel would have it from the beginning. Unfortunately, this is not the case, which means I won't be purchasing this game now, I don't want more Windows software. Hopefully they'll do a Linux port of this game before it becomes irrelevant. Too bad they don't have one now, or they could have my twenty bucks, too.

It probably would have cost more than twenty bucks to make a Linux port.

I know you think you're funny, but most people spend more than I do on the humble bundles (well, most linux users) so clearly there's a paying linux games market out there, and given that most people are willing to spend more than I am, if I'm willing to buy this game, there's probably a bunch of other people willing to do the same. The engine probably didn't have to change dramatically between games (though what do I know?) and if it didn't then there's no excuse for there not being a Linux version right now.

That statement is a little naive. They will release the Linux version when it is ready. They aren't going to sit on the Windows version once it's done just so that they can also finish the Linux version before starting to sell either one. And there's no reason to split the team into 2 versions doing simultaneous development when they should focus the entire team on making the game great and polished, on whatever platform they want first (turns out they picked the one with the biggest market share), and then refocus the entire team into porting to other platforms. They can be making money on sales while they're working on the platforms with smaller market shares. It makes perfect sense to do that if they happen to be one of those companies that is working with finite resources.

I think I had exactly the same experience with this game. I like the cartoony art style and the fast chaotic battles.
"Normal" difficulty seemed like Easy Mode, and I ran through it with an Embermage in about 23 hours of play.
"Veteran" difficulty, on the other hand, requires some attention to get the build right and constantly keeping up with weapon and armor upgrades. But there is plenty of all that to choose from, and each of the character types can win with one of several different build styles. I might even stick my toe into the Elite waters.

Yeah, that seems to be about right. I can't even imagine what Casual mode must be like. I started my first character on Normal, got through a few dungeons, hit level 12 and realized I had never invested a single skill point. I was still playing an outlander with the original one point in that throwing skill, doing just fine. On top of that, everything short of boss battles couldn't even injure my pet. I'd watch my ferret run around, on fire, taking hits from all so

The review forgot to mention that the creators of Diablo 2 left Blizzard North and Diablo 3 was made by a whole new crew. Granted those guys have some pedigree too, but not in the ARPG genre (Fallout, Total Annihilation, etc.). Several of the Blizzard North guys eventually worked their way around to Runic games, and TL 1 and 2 are both products of the guys who made Diablo 2.

There's a reason TL 2 plays so well and is so friendly to players the way D2 was. I've often thought but never had proof of it until now: video games are an art and are about vision of the team leads. Programming is important, graphics are important, but those are technical aspects; gameplay is an art form and very dependent upon who is making the game, not what studio, or what graphics or technical aspects it has. No set of games have illustrated this point more clearly than the recent launches of D3 and TL2.

The D2 to D3 progression reminds me of Warcraft 3 to WoW - same world; different types of game. There are many other parallels between WoW and D3, like how the games don't "start" until max level, the prevalence of an AH, the always-on internet connection, etc.

If D3 had not been billed as the sequel to D2, I think a lot of the hate would have been held back. Had they called it "World of Diablo" (or whatever), people may have realized that they were different types of game. For example, the skill system a

I haven't played D3, but I've played TL1 and D2, and I've now played through TL2.

Cons: In my opinion, the storytelling of TL2 is somewhat less compelling and expansive than was that of D2. Also, the D2 had good cinematics, and most (all?) of its narration was recorded voices, rather than just text that you have to read.

Pros: Lots of fun, low hardware requirements, good randomization of maps. Fun approach to playing random maps after you beat the game (I'm not going to spoil it.) No DRM.

And last but not least, it's a great entertainment value for $20. Money very well in my case. From the reviews, I don't think I would have considered $60 for D3 to be a worthwhile purchase.

Cons: In my opinion, the storytelling of TL2 is somewhat less compelling and expansive than was that of D2.

Agree, the bar has been set pretty low on the story, I'm only vaguely paying any attention to it myself. But at least you can tell they put their focus in on the game play. With where it's at, I'd almost prefer the story to be scaled back even more, with just some brief hand waving about go forth and strike down evil.

Most rogue-likes never even bothered with it at all. And if you didn't dig through the readme files or hear it from someone, the only obvious thing was "we need to go deeper" and yet peopl

Conversely the story in Diablo 3 is terrible. The fact that you're beaten over the head with it on each play through only makes it more annoying. Diablo 3 would be a much better game if the bad story wasn't always in your way.

I agree. Diablo3 would've been much better with randomized maps + free roam, not the story mode restriction that they force on you. The story mode really ruined multiplayer aswell, it's one of the main reasons why no one plays d3 multiplayer.

Diablo 3 got it wrong in every department, and Torchlight 2 got it right. Torchlight 2 has randomized maps, free roam, and a multiplayer lobby system with named games! Pretty much everything that Diablo 2 had that Diablo3 should've had...

This is not really a comment, more of a question: wasn't the biggest complain about Diablo 2 the fact that it was wide open to cheating/hacking due to the fact that you could bring online the stuff you acquired offline? I'm not really familiar with the genre, I only played like three D2 sessions and no torchlight so don't bash me for my ignorance but isn't it exactly the same here ?

What is gonna prevent my neighbor's kid from hacking the sandworm-slaying-axe-of-madness and bringing it online to cut me in

It is. Basically since it is fully moddable with no server of any kind really (the game runs P2P), there is nothing stopping people from changing their char to anything. Runic did already disable console commands in multiplayer and do have a way to show that you are using a modded char, but since everything is client side, that will almost certainly be bypassed.
Basically, TL2 and D3 took the 2 halves of D2 game play and went full bore in opposite directions. TL2 has no secure server of any kind, whereas D

I'm hoping TL2 will develop a community more like Neverwinter Nights where just because you can play with a modded character doesn't mean it'll be a hackfest. With the engine being so open we should see some interesting mods come out over the next year or two. The Steam version having a mod manager will probably help some in that regard.

Why would lag enable (item-related) hacks? I know Blizzard games have had some duping hacks involving induced lag over the years, but that's just crappy code. As long as you don't trust your clients, there's just no opening for item-related hacks.

> Why would lag enable (item-related) hacks? I know Blizzard games have had some duping hacks involving induced lag over the years, but that's just crappy code.Agreed; but it did. Duping in Diablo 1 was trivial -- just by dropping items on the ground and picking them up fast.

> As long as you don't trust your clients, there's just no opening for item-related hacks.In theory yes, in practice no. If you don't trust the client for anything youa) overload your serversb) introduce > 100 ms responses th

This is not really a comment, more of a question: wasn't the biggest complain about Diablo 2 the fact that it was wide open to cheating/hacking due to the fact that you could bring online the stuff you acquired offline?

That is a complaint, but not really a big one. There's a vocal minority that complains about it, but most people don't really care what other people do as long as it's not affecting their own game.

What is gonna prevent my neighbor's kid from hacking the sandworm-slaying-axe-of-madness and bringing it online to cut me in half?

For one, PVP is not only entirely consensual, you also have to enable the console and know the right command to enable it. It's impossible for somebody to attack you unless you both know how and consent to it.

But that aside, if somebody jumps into your game with a level 100 character and starts one-shotting ever

I got my $60 out of it, and so did almost everybody who's bitching about it. I don't know where anybody got this idea that their one-time payment (that has become progressively cheaper as it failed to increase with inflation) should give them hundreds of hours of entertainment.

If you check your played time and it's over 100 hours, maybe you should stop whining about how crappy you think it is, because clearly your bitchy brain and your gaming brain are having an argument.

Actually, the old man in me wishes the entire gaming community would benefit from a complete media blackout when it comes to video games. Then they can buy a game without expectations, enjoy it without absorbing the negative crap from other gamers, and be satisfied.

I don't think the point was getting your $60 worth. D3 was in "development" for 10 years and it ended up having the main feature ended up being the Real Money Auction House. For the time that Blizzard invested in the game, one would expect more than 4 Act's of similar looking tilesets and models. I've only played through 2.5 Acts of Torchlight 2 and I'm pretty sure I've seen at least twice the models that D3 had. I was able to sell $40 worth of gear on the RMAH to at least get some of my money back on D3.

I totally agree with you. I played the demo of Torchlight 2 and while it's fun, the intensity of the battles is no match for what you find on Diablo 3. Matt Uelmen on the other hand is Torchlight's biggest asset IMHO.

In any case, I think you can enjoy both games. Maybe Diablo 3 isn't what people expected of a Diablo 2 successor but it still is a great game on its own. It's not like the Diablo series were the greatest game ever for me since I'm more of an RTS fan and I would take a Dark Reign sequel over Dia

I played the demo of Torchlight 2 and while it's fun, the intensity of the battles is no match for what you find on Diablo 3.

Are you serious? The boss fights in Diablo 3 were a joke. The only one that was half decent was Belial. The boss fights in TL2 are far more intricate, and if you play on Veteran or Elite difficulty the bosses are extremely challenging.

I agree that the boss fights are a joke, but I hope you agree with me that the general hack and slash is way better in Diablo 3 than it is in Torchlight. Case in point: Barbarian vs. Engineer.

I would end up paying for Torchlight just to support those guys, since they are the original team. But the graphics style reminds me a lot of Battlefield Heroes which I don't find too appealing. The most cartoony I can go is with WoW, and after playing Guild Wars 2 even that pales in comparison. So I truly mean it when

Someone who would rather work (payment amount / earnings per hour) number of hours and have fun blowing stuff up for an hour instead of grinding for greater than random_number*(payment amount / earnings per hour) hours to get to the same place that would allow them to blow up stuff for an hour?

Diablo style games are a random number generator grind through near infinite swarms of mobs and countless repetitive dungeons. The grind is the game. If you enjoy the endless mindless clickfest with the swathe of corp

What? Where did money and hours of gameplay come into this? Sure, you spent $60 (not to mention it used to be $30 for a decent game) and you expect $60 worth of gameplay. But I don't think that was ever the gripe about Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 cannot be played offline.

Diablo 3 cannot be played without a Battle.net account.

Diablo 3 cannot be played without Blizzard's nod each time.

Diablo 3 will stop working mid-way through playing if your connection to Blizzard's servers fail.

What does hours of gameplay have to do with anything when the gripe is about purchasing a product and not be able to play with it whenever, wherever, and however.

As far as we're concerned, that's not what we define as buying a game, at least not to us pre-MMO generation gamers.

I agree with some of what you mention, but my biggest gripe about D3 is that it wasn't fun. It seemed more like a job than a game. The AH is so heavily integrated that I was spending way too much time in the AH trying to get a good item because the drops generally sucked.

I've only played a couple hours of TL2 so far and I like it for the price. It is fun so far. I like the D2/D3 atmosphere better. D2/D3 had better storytelling and voice acting. It made the game more immersive. TL2 has some of these,

Diablo 3 will become unplayable if your internet connection to those servers is too laggy.

I tried the open beta, through my ISP it was a slideshow where I didn't know if I was alive or dead. Admittedly a few tweaks to their QOS rules probably sorted everything all out for the games release, but why should I have to risk dieing due to lag in a single player game?

There's definitely a lot of unfounded hate for Diablo 3. It's certainly not Diablo 2, but I got my money's worth out of it.

The main problem with Diablo 3 is the auction house. Not even the RMAH - just the auction house in general. The main draw to an ARPG, and pretty much the entire endgame, is farming for better loot. In Diablo 2, you had to find all the good gear yourself, or make an effort to seek out other people to trade with. There was an entire rune-based economy that facilitated the trades, but

I don't know where anybody got this idea that their one-time payment should give them hundreds of hours of entertainment.

I think they probably got that idea from past experiences where their one-time payment got them hundreds of hours of entertainment. I could be wrong though.

I can't even guess how many hundreds of hours I've put into Fallout, Fallout 2, Diablo, Diablo 2, etc. Shit, I have over 400 hours in Skyrim, and that's been out for less than a year. Last night I was playing through a heavily-modded Fallout: New Vegas again. I've played through both Fallout 3 and Borderlands with at least 3 characters each. I've in

To add to the above, that list barely scratches the surface. I didn't even mention Doom, Doom 2, Doom 3 (played that a couple months ago again), Far Cry, Far Cry 2, Crysis, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, Descent, Freespace 1 and 2, Freelancer, the X-series, etc etc etc etc. I've spent hundreds of hours in each of those games over several playthroughs (where applicable) over an extended period. I am a nerd. And I have no girlfriend. But I sure as hell get my money's worth out of

I concur. I cannot help but be amazed at the number of people who think that Blizzard killed their puppies or something. I mean, just look at this thing... "Gift of the gods?" "The new best game ever?" I think Borderlands 2 is probably the game of the year, but I don't think anyone's granted it sainthood yet.

And then there's this: Sure, you can only reallocate the last three skill points you've spent, and you can't redo all your stats and skills once you're leveled up. That's so that you learn from your

This is the most addictive RPG I have played in my life. I really love the rapid fire pace of the gear and specialization point systems and I only have one real complaint with the combat: it can be pretty hard to actually get your character moving somewhere instead of attacking once you are mostly-surrounded. Cheap deaths are pretty frustrating and the game mechanics are solid but not perfect.

I've been playing Torchlight 2 for a few days now, and right away I knew this was the better game. The art style is not better because its cartoony, its better because its designed by better artists, who really understand appeal, quality of animation, and design. This game not only looks better, its just more fun. Diablo 3 was a huge let down. Diablo 3 had 1 interesting boss battle and it wasnt the final Diablo battle, which was a complete fucking disaster artistically. I mean Blizzard should redo the end of the game so that there actually is a climax and a resolve. Diablo 3 is so uneventful, and so poorly designed artistically. I'll give Blizzard a nod for a good item system, auction house, and decent shading and lighting but overall Torchilight 2 makes blizzard look like amateurs.

Even the spells, and abilities all look better, more colorful, better particles, better everything. Torchlight 2 just feels right. And hey its 6 player!

Torchlight 2 is the best $20s you can spend on games right now. Torchlight 2 is so good, you will feel ripped off by Diablo 3.

I will buy this game the instant there is a native OS X version available. Loved the first one but I don't have any Windows machines any more and I'm not messing around with virtualization or whatever just for a game.

The first game I've tried was the original Torch Light. I like it so much so far it's the only game I've played out of the bundle, despite some of the others looking quite appealing.

I've been playing it on my quite powerful desktop - but I noticed it had a "netbook mode" which for some reason was checked by default. I decided to put it on my netbook. For some reason it was NOT checked by default, but after clunking around with the graphics it is actually playable on my dual core Atom using Intel graphics on Kubuntu. I wouldn't exactly call it optimal and smooth, but it's still quite playable.

I loved the original Diablo back in the day, I even bought the expansion pack for it. Then Diablo II came out and I enjoyed it for a while. Not too long, shortly afterwards Blizzard pissed me off by dragging a personal friend into a lawsuit over BNetD, they started suing a bunch of Unreal modders they had previously helped, and I quite dual-booting Windows as I found it to be a waste of hard drive space.

In short Torchlight has offered me everything I liked about Diablo, it works on Linux, and I don't have the guilty sick to my stomach feeling that dealing with Blizzard products gives me.

I can't tell you enough - buy the thing. Go get the bundle, and as soon as a Linux version of Torchlight 2 is released I'll go get it. My only complaint about the original Torchlight - it sometimes crashes when a new area gets loaded up. No big deal, I start the program and I'm standing exactly where I should have been without the crash so - yeah, it's great. Also gem hunting isn't quite as frustrating as it was in Diablo 2.

Luckily for Runic the rest of the world feels a need for this game.
I don't see a need for Borderlands 2 but I don't run around with a sock stuffed down my pants and advertise that as a universally accepted fact.
I'm sorry if I have melted you, you beautiful and delicious and adorable and absolutely fabulous unique snowflake. Still love ya.

The core game design is fucking retarded. The gear upgrade path is market based. In some sense its much more efficient to gear up in D3 by playing "auction house trader" than "hack and slash dungeon crawler".

That's fine if you -want- to play a trading game. But if that's what you want, play EVE or something that actually does a good job of it.

D3 is a lousy ARPG.

Its a half decent part time job though.

larger.... trading market than TL2 ever will

Well yeah, that's true, but you say it like its a good thing. I don't crawl dungeons so that I can sell things over the internet, to fund buying other things over the internet so that I can crawl dungeons more efficiently in order to sell even more things over the internet.

I'm happy TL2 will never be that.

Enjoy your part time job.

And the new changes around the corner in 1.05 are a vast step in the right direction.

The core game design is fucking retarded. The gear upgrade path is market based. In some sense its much more efficient to gear up in D3 by playing "auction house trader" than "hack and slash dungeon crawler".

One thing that I haven't seen too many reviews cover is that auction houses ruin the sense of discovery or surprise when you find a new item, particularly unique items. In TL2, when I find a unique drop, it's like opening a Christmas present. With D3, it's like they showed me everyone's presents before putting them into the boxes. Sure, I don't know which present is in which box, but the surprise isn't quite the same, you know?

In TL2, I don't know what the maximum weapon DPS is. I don't know what modifiers

What exactly are you basing this opinion on? Out of about 25 people, with the exception of ONE person, everyone I know that purchased D3 has stopped playing it. Their reasons span the full spectrum of the howling you read online...but all of them stem from "it really isn't that fun." If you listen to any gaming podcasts or keep up with any non-blizzard, non-fanboi forums, you will read the exact same story time and time again.

D3 probably sold 100x the copies of T2 due to fabricated hype, WoW fanbois, and

And the new changes around the corner in 1.05 are a vast step in the right direction.

What do you mean, they're moving all of the processing from a central server to the local PC? Because that's the only direction they can take with that game which would even make me consider looking at it to start to think about purchasing it during some sale or something. Any other step is actually a "sidestep".

D3 is not D2 and won't be saved from ruin until the dev team learns a couple of fundamental things they could have learned from D2 which at release was also a completely different game from what it became the following 5 years.

1) An ARPG lives and dies by its pace and responsiveness. Having to skip cut-scenes, the sheer amount of crowd control the player character is subjected to and the slow movement speed is a complete antithesis of what an ARPG is supposed to be.

2) Even tho the original D2 devs also hated it the most popular feature of patch 1.10 of D2 was the inclusion of cross-class skills. The player loved it, the devs hated it. The D3 team permanently shut that door by including a non-mana based resource system. They can not pull this off without doing a major revamp of the game.

3) The sheer amount of handholding that's going on in D3 boggles the mind. D2 and torchlight limit you by level and stat points in what loot you can wear. D3 limits you by class. Want to play a DH with a fat 2hander for whatever inane reason you can come up with? Sorry, you can't. Want to play a completely dex based barbarian with a crossbow? Nope. 'Do as thou wilt' was replaced with 'because we say so'. You want to be a melee WD? Well, only the classic melee characters get a flat 30% melee incoming damage reduction.

4) Their reliance on a completely gold based economy is stupid. Nobody ever managed to pull off an interesting gold based economy. Either it works somewhat(as D3's does) and is completely boring or it doesn't and becomes a nuisance. This may sound like a weak point but what the gold based, AH centric economy does is it doesn't encourage bartering and trading. This was a major community builder. There were a LOT of successful websites/forums that started out as barter towns, grew into real communities and kept D2 going way beyond its due-date. D3 is an anonymous hodge-podge.

5) Character progression is non-existant in D3 or beyond frustrating. It is not unreasonable to expect to be able to finish the game on inferno difficulty with only what you picked up yourself within 100 in-game hours. That should be the yard-stick. The goal of the grind-fest should be mindles mass murder of unsuspecting demons to blow off steam or to gather loot to be even more efficient in said mass murder or to gear up twinks with a silly character concept. But at no point should you feel slow and gimped. Inferno mode is completely inaccessible.

6) At release and at the moment the game screams 'we haven't thought this through'. The 30% flat incoming damage reduction of monks and barbs say 'we haven't tuned the game properly'. The auction house ui with only 3 filters for 6 possible properties on rares made the AH next to unusable. Increased incoming damage in multi player games in an already overtuned game made grouping unattractive. The crafting system made you broke if you weren't very, very clever using it. The very rare legendaries were completely unviable on inferno mode(especially the weapons). The damage scaling in inferno is completely off. They advertised the game for PvP(god knows why) and they still haven't delivered.

7) Tying real money to gear limits what they can do to improve the game. Once real money has changed hands for loot you can't reasonably nerf or buff stuff that has been sold without getting yourself in real hot water. And I sincerely doubt their RMAH cut is enough to cover the financial, legal and PR headache that follows.

I'm sorry, but the team that made D3 didn't take a look at what made D2 the game of the decade and only added supreficial improvements. If they don't learn that their approach to D3 was completely off then they will not be able to salvage it whatsoever. The whole game feels like the core mechanics were designed by the Blizzard B-Team. Art and music is wonderful, tho. But at the moment it is a polished turd.

Tell that to my account. Out of my home town during the battle.net hack, my account was comprimised. I come back, my account is shut down. $60, poof, gone. Fuck blizzard and the high horse they rode in on.